


mary mary quite contrary

by nebulousviolet



Series: aftg character studies [8]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Gen, It makes sense I swear, both stuart and mary are very interesting characters n i couldnt resist, lowercase abuse, stuart's pov but mary centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 22:12:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12094554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulousviolet/pseuds/nebulousviolet
Summary: mary hatford had been ten months and five hours and two minutes older.





	mary mary quite contrary

**Author's Note:**

> well this is...dark  
> i pumped this baby out in ten mins flat, can u tell?  
> also im trying to see if ppl can guess how old i am from my writing alone lol guess in the comments  
> for frostandcoal, bc they love these, and hadia

mary hatford had always been domineering, even as a child.  
“let’s play kings and queens,” she would say, her chin raised. “i will be bloody mary.”

and like bloody mary, stuart’s older sister (by ten months exactly) came to a tragic end.

he hadn’t wanted to see her son at first. _he looks so much like nathan._ her nathaniel, her darling boy, the one she had crowed over in the brief moments she could slip away to call home. _oh, stuart, he’s got his father’s eyes and these chubby little cheeks and you should really see him, i know you hate the states but-_

but. perhaps stuart should’ve accepted her offer. _mary, mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?_ he’d already knew his sister was dead when he stepped inside that baltimore house. it was like being crushed to death, the ghost of his sister ( _ten months and five hours and two minutes older_ ) engulfing him until he could barely breathe, the gun in his hand heavy not with its own weight, but with that of mary’s. mary was dead, but in his mind’s eye they were ten years old and sat on blackpool pier, pretending not to know their father was sat in his office smoking a cigar and ordering deaths like one might order a coffee.

mary had never really grown up, not really. the last time he’d seen her, she’d been in her early thirties, still flushed with youth and beauty even if she was a mess. _get me to europe, get me to germany or switzerland or anywhere but here, stuart_. even with her son almost the same age as she’d been while she’d signed away her life to a man with less morals than her father, mary had been ageless. mary had been untouchable. mary had been _ten months and five hours and two minutes_ older than him and she had arrived early with much fanfare, as was her way. she was his first memory, the almost-silver of her blonde hair gleaming in the light as she whispered, _“play with me, i’m bored.”_

sometimes he’d sit in his study and wonder how mary, charming and cunning and beautiful mary, had ended up with a man like nathan. _he bought me roses and told me i was pretty but the roses had thorns, stuart, they had thorns_. and that was how. his sister was not stupid but she had been easily swayed. _he is my son and not nathan’s; the doctors cut him out of me; he is my son and not his_. but nathaniel had still grown up with that godawful american accent anyway. mary was right, he was not nathan’s but instead something of his own, the ashes of a pressed flower disintegrating into something toxic. mary had always been a pulsating heartbeat, built on blood and filled with it. but she was a hatford; they both were. he remembered sitting down at his desk at their exclusive boarding school and finding the words _gangster scum_ written on the surface in bold black sharpie and clenching his fist so hard his knuckles felt bruised. they were hatfords; they saw the ichor of the gods and thought, _how can i make an aphrodite out of this_.

_i would’ve called him elizabeth, had he been a girl._

and what was it stuart had learned in history all those years ago? mary and elizabeth and the stuarts, ruling one after the other.

maybe it was fitting, he thought

his first memory had been of mary. as a young subordinate hungry for power held a gun against his head, he thought of his sister again. _ten months and five hours and two minutes older-_

and stuart hatford died with his sister’s name on his lips.

 

**Author's Note:**

> comments > kudos > nothing.  
> follow me on tumblr: bookishplays  
> check out other works in this series!! they're all far longer than this one and usually less depressing


End file.
